


the wrong man in the wrong place

by zerozerozero



Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self-Aware, Half-Life
Genre: Civil Protection, Nonbinary Benrey (Half-Life), acab !, alyx :handshake: gordon: "what the fuck is going on", barely proofread, mention of stalkers (half-life), they/themrey !!!, this is. short but i havent written anything in a While so. nbd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24516979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zerozerozero/pseuds/zerozerozero
Summary: misc hl2 scenes but theyre hlvrai. assumes that the charity stream is noncanon but does take like 1 idea from it
Relationships: (sorta ???), Benrey/Gordon Freeman (Implied)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 41





	1. point insertion

Gordon wakes up on a moving train, groggy and exhausted. He rubs his eyes and takes a look around that should probably be a bit more frantic, when he thinks about it. Somebody tries to make conversation with him, but he can’t process a word they’re saying.  
When the train stops, Gordon walks off. He hears a familiar voice and looks up to see his old boss talking on a large screen above him. Gordon sighs, immediately resigned to whatever situation he’s in now. This might as well happen. He walks towards the revolving door leading away from the railway platform.  
He passes a strangely dressed guard harassing somebody and tries not to make eye contact. The revolving door leads him into a cafeteria-esque area where somebody tells him not to drink the water. Gordon wants to take a nap. Gordon just wants to lay down on the floor and take a nap, but he continues towards the- Checkpoint? Is that a checkpoint? Given the dystopian setting, it probably is, and he’s probably going to get stopped and shipped off to some prison to get turned into a brainwashed, barely-recognizable-as-human, husk with no digestive tract. Or something like that.  
Gordon almost, almost gets through the checkpoint, but at the last second there’s an alarm, and the gate in front of him shuts. A guard comes out of a door at his side and points at him, saying “Yo, citizen, come with me.” No, wait, they said “you”, not “yo”, why would they say “yo, citizen”, that’s stupid. Gordon follows the guard, and they lead him to a small room. The room has a security camera and a chair with a large, red stain directly in front of it, among other incredibly unwelcoming things. The peak of hospitality.  
“Go ahead, get in, since your ass wanna act Boar vessel, 600-500 BC Etruscan ceramic [1].” The guard speaks again, and Gordon is totally sure they said that but why the fuck would they say that?  
“… I’m sorry?”  
“It’s fine.”  
“……… Okay.” This might as well happen.  
Gordon enters the room. The security camera makes a series of popping noises and begins to spark as the guard follows. Once the camera falls off of its perch entirely, Gordon turns to the guard, but before he can say anything they take off their mask and he’s immediately bombarded with almost-images and not-sounds and buzzing and- good god is this what the big bang was like??  
When it stops- just as suddenly as it had started- there’s static at the edges of his vision and ringing in his ears.  
“You good?” Benry sounds- and looks- just as strange and obnoxious as usual. It’s relieving, and Gordon hates it.  
“No???”  
“Y’know you- you almost got shipped off to some prison to get… turned into a brainwashed husk with no digestive tract or feet, so. You’re welcome, feetman.” Benrey tosses their mask off into a corner.  
“Wh- where am I? Where is this? Why aren’t you dead?” Gordon expects none of these questions to be answered.  
Benry shrugs.


	2. a red letter day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ngl i didnt expect to make another chapter for this i just wanted to write the laminate joke

“Did he make it?” Benrey steps into Coomer/Bubby’s lab and Gordon winces, expecting more of whatever the hell happened last time he saw their face, but it never comes. “Oh. Hey.”  
“Hey.” Gordon waves.  
“Y’know, you should. Get outta here before you fuck everything up.”  
“Don’t worry, he’s coming with me.” Alyx smiles, putting a hand on Gordon’s shoulder.  
“Did you guys actually get the teleporter working this time? ‘Cause, y’know, last time. Pretty horrific.” Benry looks Gordon directly in the eyes.  
“You thought it was funny.” Dr. Bubby says.  
“Oh god.” Gordon’s immediately scared for his life a little bit. “What happened last time?”  
“What happened last time?” Alyx repeats.  
“Don’t worry about it.” Dr. Coomer says in that weirdly intense voice that always makes Gordon worry about it.  
“Are we gonna put feetman in the new hev suit or not?” Benry says ‘hev’ instead of ‘aych ee vee’.  
“Of course! If you would do the honors, Benrey?” Coomer’s normal, oddly chipper voice is back, but it does very little to soothe Gordon’s nerves.  
“Yeah, okay.” They push a button, and the garage-like door near the front of the lab opens up, revealing a new, less bulky and orange, HEV Suit, displayed in a glass case. On top of the case is a headcrab. “Oh shit, hey, man.”  
The headcrab hisses and Alyx fumbles for her gun while Gordon falls over and scrambles backwards, yelling expletives. Those things are so much scarier when you’re wearing regular clothes instead of a state-of-the-art suit made specifically for handling incredibly hazardous materials. Gordon pities The Science Team for a moment.  
“This is my pet. Her name is...” Bubby pauses as if he’s coming up with the name on the spot. “Laminate.”  
“Laminate? Like flooring?” Gordon asks, incredulous and a little out of breath.  
“Yes.”  
“Dr. Bubby, this is just a headcrab.” Alyx lowers her pistol, sounding baffled. “Shouldn’t- shouldn’t we… kill it?”  
“Now, Alyx, you need to respect Dr. Bubby’s choice in companion, even if it is a bit unorthodox!” Dr. Coomer chimes in.  
“I’ve never seen this headcrab in my life?? I don’t think Dr. Bubby has either?”  
“Of course I’ve seen her before!” Dr. Bubby lies. “And she’s completely harmless.”  
“… Okay. I guess I’ll take your word for it.” Alyx does not put her gun away.  
“Are you gonna put the thing on or not, feetman?” Gordon looks back over to Benry and sees them cradling the headcrab in their arms.  
“Right, yeah. Of course.” He gets up off the floor and walks over, keeping a close eye on the two of them. As Gordon puts the new HEV Suit on, Dr. Coomer lists off the new features. Some of them make sense, like extra battery capacity and reduced weight, while others don’t, like 'sun neutralization'. “Hey, Coomer, what’s sun neutralization?”  
“It neutralizes the sun, Gordon!”  
Gordon looks to Alyx, hoping for a real explanation, but she looks just as confused as he feels


	3. Follow Freeman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> u thought this wasnt gonna get gay ? huh ? you thought wrong. anyways this chapter is like 90% dialogue. it doesnt have a good ending but i didnt have any other ideas so

Gordon makes it onto the upper floor. He’s wet, and tired, and he really doesn’t feel like saving Benry from a situation that they probably got themselves into on purpose because they thought it’d be funny. Gordon stands back to let the snipers in the adjacent buildings pick off the zombies. He’s a little upset at just how easy it is for him to justify putting in the effort to help Benrey, despite everything. That justification is definitely NOT ‘I like them’ or something similar, by the way. It’s not.  
Gordon sprints past a destroyed section of wall, taking cover in a small corner. He tosses a grenade blindly, ducking down until he hears the explosion and the sound of a Combine soldier flatlining. He makes his way over to an open part of the roof, where he can see Benry, curled in on themselves, trying to be as small as possible. One of their arms is clipping into their leg.  
“Benrey? Are you alright up there?” Gordon calls out.  
“I’ve been pinned by snipers.”  
“Yeah, I-”  
“Are you a bad enough dude to kiss me with tongue.” Benry continues, speaking right over Gordon.  
“… What are you saying? What the fuck are you saying to me?”  
“Are you?” Benrey makes direct, uncomfortable eye contact with him.  
“Am I-” Gordon laughs, despite himself. “You- God, Benry, whatever. I’m coming up there, don’t move.”  
Gordon turns on his heel, jogging up the steps. He makes quick work of the snipers and headcrabs on the roof, and sits down next to Benrey. They unfold themselves and there's a burst of static when they move the arm that had clipped into their leg.  
“Hey, thanks.” Benry mumbles. “You- uh, you... didn’t have to do that, I guess. I appreciate it. Or whatever.”  
“No problem.” Gordon says, suspicious. “I don’t think you’ve ever thanked me for anything before.”  
“Yeah, well, you haven’t given me much reason to thank you, y’know, since you murdered me.” Benry says the last part of that sentence with a weirdly specific inflection. It’s almost like they’re referencing something.  
“You’re still here, aren’t you? Obviously I did a pretty shit job.”  
“Hahah, yeah.” Benrey grins.  
“Hey, by the way, why are you still here?” Gordon hates that sentence the moment it comes out of his mouth.  
“Huh?”  
“Uh. That sounded bad. The thing is- Y’know, we-” Gordon flounders, uncharacteristically concerned with Benry’s feelings. “I thought you were dead, but you’re not.”  
“I told you, bro, I’m not human.”  
“Yeah, but plenty of not-human things can die, Benrey-”  
“I can’t.”  
“Then why were you stuck up here?”  
“The snipers weren’t, like, an issue, but it still would’ve hurt to get shot. Dumbass.”  
“Oh. Right.” Gordon thinks on that for a moment. “Hey, uh-”  
“I dunno.” Benrey shrugs.  
“What? H-”  
“That’s everyone’s next question once they figure it out.”  
“Huh. How many people have figured it out?”  
“You, Tommy, a couple other people who’s names I can’t remember. I’m pretty sure Bubby and Coomer know, but they haven’t talked to me about it.”  
“Who were those other people?” Gordon has a feeling that he would actually prefer not knowing.  
“Y’know, people. Scientists, mostly.”  
“Scientists? Were you-” Gordon puts a hand on Benrey’s shoulder. “Were you an experiment at Black Mesa?”  
“Yeah. I ate a guard and stole his stupid outfit.” Gordon isn’t totally sure if Benry’s joking or not.  
“Okay, you’ve… destroyed any sympathy I might’ve had for you in that moment.” Gordon moves to get up, but stops to glare once he hears Benrey laughing.  
“You cared about me for a second there?” Benry’s face is flushed, but they’re smiling. They have teeth like needles. “Gayass.”  
“You’re one to talk!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw. companion piece https://deadmanjane.tumblr.com/post/620426392827527168/wrote-a-fic-its-called-the-wrong-man-in-the-wrong

**Author's Note:**

> 1 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boar_Vessel,_600-500_BC,_Etruscan,_ceramic_-_Cleveland_Museum_of_Art_-_DSC08263.JPG


End file.
